Central Maine News: Oct 21, 2015

These are some of the stories central Maine is talking about today.

The school superintendent in Waterville has recommended the dismissal of Waterville Senior High School's principal. The Morning Sentinel reports the Waterville Board of Education will hold a public hearing at principal Don Reiter's request on Nov. 10. News of the hearing comes six weeks after the superintendent and the Waterville Police Department began separate investigations of Reiter. He has been on administrative leave with pay on Sept. 1 for reasons he will not reveal. Police have declined to say why Reiter was investigated. They say they sent a report to the Kennebec County District Attorney about three weeks ago. (AP)

A section of road in Windsor was closed Tuesday after thousands of dead fish spilled out of a truck and onto the road. According to WABI, a witness told sheriff’s deputies that fish poured from the sides and rear of a blue dump-truck style vehicle as it turned onto Ridge Road from Route 17 in front of the elementary school. Responders say the road was caked with fish and fish guts, making it extremely slippery. Workers from the Maine DOT, along with the Windsor Fire Department and Windsor Public Works, removed the fish from the road. (WABI)

At Unity College they are playing a game: Humans vs. Zombies. More than one hundred students and some faculty members are marked human, with a band around the arm, or zombie, with a band around the head. It starts with the Original Zombie – who is on the prowl all week trying to get humans to join the ranks. Evil-plotting and Nerf guns aside – this innocuous game of tag is all in the name of science. It can actually show how a disease can run through a small population like Unity College. Theories they can use to combat an outbreak in the future. (WABI)

The mother-in-law of Gov. Paul LePage has died at the age of 77. Rita DeRosby died Sunday in Augusta, surrounded by her family. She married Richard DeRosby in 1957 and the couple raised four children in Oakland, including the governor’s wife, Ann LePage. According to the KJ, According to the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, which received her obituary, DeRosby spent the last years of her life with her daughter and son-in-law in the Blaine House, the official residence of the governor and his family. (centralmaine.com)

The Maine Department of Corrections is proposing changes to the rules that govern the way prisoners communicate with the outside world. The list of proposed changes includes prohibiting prisoners from soliciting or communicating with a pen pal, publishing a byline or "acting as an agent of the news media." Critics say the proposed changes raise free speech issues. Members of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and others say the changes won't reduce recidivism and will further isolate inmates. Thr Maine attorney general's office declined to comment on the issue on the grounds that the public comment period on the proposal is still open. (AP)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says it will provide $6.5 million so a Maine science center can build an interactive tool to help educate students about climate change. Gulf of Maine Research Institute will begin work on the project immediately. The institute says the work will construct the infrastructure needed to bring educational content about climate change to students and science center visitors in Maine and around the country. The work will redevelop the technology in the Cohen Center for Interactive Learning. The institute says the overhaul will allow the program to be accessed via the Internet for classrooms around the country. The institute says 10,000 Maine students who visit GMRI every year will consider evidence of climate change and the ways human activity intersects with climate. (AP)

Maine's unemployment rate has declined to its lowest point in more than nine years. State officials say the preliminary seasonally adjusted rate of 4.4 percent for September was down slightly from the 4.5 percent rate for August. It's the lowest unemployment rate since April 2006. The number of unemployed people declined 8,800 over the year to 30,200. The nationwide unemployment rate of 5.1 percent was the same as the previous month and down from 5.9 percent a year ago. New England's unemployment rate was 4.6 percent. State officials say the estimate of the employment to population ratio of 59.9 percent was also the lowest in more than three years. The U.S. average was 59.2 percent. (AP)

Top law enforcement officials from around the country plan today to announce their involvement in a new push to lower incarceration rates. A spokesman for Chicago police confirms the planned announcement involving a coalition of more than 100 law enforcement officials. Anthony Guglielmi says the group, called Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, will push for re-evaluating sentences for nonviolent offenses, and plans to meet Thursday with President Barack Obama. (AP)

Syrian state media say President Bashar Assad has met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, in the first known trip abroad for the embattled leader since war broke out in his country in 2011. A report says Assad met Putin Tuesday in Moscow. It says the two leaders discussed the continuation of the military operations against "terrorists" in Syria. Russia began airstrikes against insurgents in Syria on Sept. 30. (AP)

The Vatican is denying a report in an Italian newspaper that Pope Francis has a small, curable brain tumor. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, says the report today in the National Daily is "unfounded and seriously irresponsible." He says, "The pope is carrying out as always with his intense activities." The newspaper says the pope had traveled to a clinic near Pisa in recent months to see a Japanese specialist. (AP)

A New York teenager whose brother died following a church beating is expected to testify at a hearing today to determine whether authorities can continue to hold their older sister — one of six church members accused in the attack. Nineteen-year-old Lucas Leonard died after authorities say he and 17-year-old brother Christopher were beaten at the Word of Life Christian Church in Oneida County, New York earlier this month. The boys' parents also are charged. (AP)

California prison officials are setting the first standards for transgender inmates to receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery. Under a new policy, prison mental health professionals would refer for the surgery inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria — those who've expressed a desire for sex-reassignment surgery for at least two years and have lived as a member of the preferred gender for at least a year. (AP)